Woody Allen has eight great films. And double figures in stinkers. I mind Barry Norman listed this picture among his 100 GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME. He was so wrong (with most of his list) and must have lost his mind or been on the gear or something.
It’s okay, but not brilliantly hilarious or breathtakingly original, and often just plain annoying.
A movie ostensibly about baseball. I know nothing about baseball aside from the name Babe Ruth. This movie almost piqued my interest in the sport of baseball.
From a time when Kevin Costner could do no wrong, hit after hit.
This movie is good and if made today it would most likely have to have a ‘message’ or token member of a downtrodden minority. Or a lesbian.
Something like that.
This movie was fucking appalling.
Please, don’t watch it.
This hypnotic, mesmerising motion picture had me awestruck at the phenomenal confidence and skill of its director, his obsessive style and editing mirroring its progressively maniacal protagonist in the throes of a cancel culture out of her control, unable to dig herself out of a mess of her own making. It demands your complete focus and thus draws you deeper into its muddied internal maze of things blatant and intimated, of a pivotal backstory that is captivating despite us seeing none of it.
The movie could be mistaken for peak Michael Haneke – the clinical aesthetic, the foreboding mood, and all-pervading sense of surveillance. The director (and our monstrous subject) attaches an increasing primacy to sounds within the frame and off-screen, these impinging on the character’s unravelling ego. It’s so well executed that it’s unbearable; you really are along for the ride in a way that recalls Polanski’s Repulsion (1965). And on that filmmaker, Tár (2022) broods over the still-contentious debate: Can we ever forget the person and honour the artist for the art only?
One of the most violent movies ever that has no bloodletting in it, a violence of barely concealed fury and scorn, this is a truly original work.
There are few films like it and I suspect won’t be.
For sheer entertainment alone this is a 5/5 but it’s suffused with added value because of its influence on its 007 progeny. More so than Dr. No (1962), this is the prototypical Bond, all the ingredients coalescing but not at the expense of plot or pacing. It’s a Bond 101, and few subsequent entries have been up to scratch.
Stunning vistas, flawlessly executed set pieces, it’s at its core a glorious spy thriller with intentional, which always helps when the jokes are not by accident, comedic elements that aren’t too outlandish. Even a scene as basic as Bond checking into a hotel and casually scouring the room for listening devices somehow dazzles.
And Lotte Lenya whacks Robert Shaw in the stomach with a knuckleduster.
Another De Niro film from his comedy vault, the two-hour running time put me off, but Tarantino speaks fondly of the movie, so that sealed the deal. It’s terrible. Shame on you, QT.
It does have a wee something to say about ageism, but it’s barely even believable. And it’s another stomach-churning movie about American office culture, with its sycophantic, annoying-as-fuck employees who couldn’t be more boring and who live for the pleasure of working for boring cunts.
And I was bored.
Hated it.
The landscape offers a lot to work with, ripe vistas aplenty, but there’s no enduring image from the cinematography side of things.
I was expecting tension and chills; this was mainly boring and unimaginative. Nothing seemed to be at stake despite all the bloodshed, and the lack of any dynamic between the driver and the demented hitchhiker is a letdown. I couldn’t locate a personality in anyone here in what in essence is a variation of the same violent road encounter occurring every 10 minutes.
The laziness of writing pisses me off, be this in a slimy thriller like we have here or a mega bucks operation. It’s not difficult to insert a few character traits and attempt to build depth but nah, apparently it’s too much of a Herculean task.
Rutger Hauer could be a scary man, though. And what happened to C. Thomas Howell?
It wasn’t my choice to watch this ugly tripe.
And I’ll never watch it again, or any movie featuring anyone involved in it.
Unfunny, painfully coarse to the level of beyond cringe, and just plain annoying.
If someone gave me a DVD of this, I’d use it as a weapon to assault them with.
Bye for now.
It’s Jaime Lannister with outrageous moustache in a leading role, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau a world away from Westeros in this brutal crime drama.
I do like a gritty thriller with a bare-bones clinical style, no faffing around. The opening voice-over is nauseating and sounds like it was written by Rocky Balboa during his … Rocky Balboa (2006) phase. But after this misstep, it got bloody good.
It shows you that anyone can end up in the slammer given unfortunate curve balls. A hellish urban landscape follows the frightful prison experience, the reality that you’re in it for life. The odds are stacked so high against this lad you just pray he makes it out alive.
It’s got its cliches aplenty but it doesn’t matter as it’s damn well put together. And the music had a bit of Nick Cave & Warren Ellis about it.
Superb movie, proper carnage.
This movie is the Al Lettieri Show – the Sollozzo fella who was good with a knife. He dwarfs everyone else, and makes a bit of a mockery of them. A star vehicle that goes nowhere, with the worst actress you’ll ever see. I watched Love Story (1970) once and wished to string myself up.
The constant zoom shots and unnecessary cuts to insignificant items was breathtakingly amateurish. Pekinpah had no idea where to plonk his camera and no conception on how to even focus on a narrative connectivity between shots; accidentally crossing the line was his only defining characteristic. The most overrated director. The sound design is also horrible and the music is intrusive and contributes nothing.
The remake is somehow better. And that’s also a pile of shite.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 